B00DW1DUQA EBOK (51 page)

They began to see others, emerging from the cracked and broken walls, fleeing through the gates. A great tide of people spilling out onto the plain, their faces lit up by the fires of Engn. Between explosions, sounds of cheering and whoops of delight filled the air. Some people staggered around, bemused. Others danced and skipped and hugged. One or two even turned back and began to hack at the walls as if to destroy what still stood of the machine.

‘Where should we go?’ said Finn. ‘There’ll be thousands of people out here soon and we need to find Connor. Perhaps he escaped by another route.’

‘The line-of-sight tower,’ said Diane. ‘There’s a better view from up there and it’s an obvious landmark.’

Finn nodded. ‘OK.’

Half an hour later, the top of the line-of-sight tower became visible over a rise in the ground, its Engn-facing side picked out in orange from the fires. As they’d done before, Finn and Diane climbed the ladder and pushed open the trapdoor. One after another, the six of them pulled themselves up. Inside, it was immediately obvious that no line-of-sight messages were coming from Engn. The bank of ‘scopes facing that way were all dark. But lights flickered in thirty or forty of the incoming ports. Word had got out already.

The tower was cramped for the six of them. Finn cleared away all the ‘scopes pointing towards Engn to give people room to sit or lie down. ‘See if you can spot Connor through the ports,’ he said. ‘Scan around with a ‘scope.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Diane.

‘I’m going to talk to Mrs. Megrim. Send her word of what’s happened. She can tell everyone else. People need to know.’

While the others felt around for a place to lie on the floor or kneeled to peer through one of the ports, Finn set to work. Would Mrs. Megrim be in the Switch House? The explosions must have been loud enough to reach the valley. Not bothering to encrypt the message this time he began to type.

The reply, when it came, was swift. Three words.
Tom and Rory?
Finn glanced over towards the others, still peering out through the ports. He typed his reply.
We’re still looking. Lots of people escaping.

It was all he could say. It struck him it was entirely possible both Tom and Rory were dead. Killed in the destruction of the machine. Because of him. The thought made him sag to this knees and hold his head in his hands. Had they really been right to do what they’d done? His chest felt tight from the bad air he’d breathed. He suddenly felt very weary.

‘Finn.’

His mother knelt down beside him, put her arm around him. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes. Can’t quite believe what we’ve done. I just hope Connor got out. Connor and everyone else.’

‘He stayed inside?’

‘He told us to get out. Said he’d follow.’

‘Then I’d believe him. You of all people should believe him.’

‘Yes. I know. Still, I don’t see how he could have.’

‘Well. There’s nothing more we can do now. Let’s all try and get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.’

Finn nodded his head in the darkness. The distant roaring of the fires of Engn continued, punctuated by the occasional crump of something exploding, or the metallic crash of collapsing ironwork.

Finn lay down to rest. He drifted into a half-sleep, waking again and again, unable to understand where he was. The only illumination was the glow of the fires through the open ports, staring at him like banks of red eyes. At one point in the night, another huge blast rocked the tower. In the darkness, it felt like the tower was whipping backwards and forwards far enough to touch the ground. The sensation reminded him of some memory but he couldn’t recall what.

The following day dawned bright a few hours later. The sun picked its way through the distant mountain peaks and began to fully illuminate the scene of destruction around them.

Engn was a smouldering ruin. Great swathes of smoke drifted over it, like its own private rain clouds. Here and there, wheels and towers were still standing, but the destruction continued as new explosions ripped through the machine. Through a ‘scope, Finn picked out the dome from the window of which the Director had once beckoned to him. A great bite had been taken out of it, as if some blast from within had ripped through it.

People continued to flood out. Many walked away from the walls and out onto the plain, spanning out in all directions. Others stood or sat around in groups, as if they still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. While his parents went off for supplies, Finn studied the crowds through the ‘scopes. He watched as people searched through the jostling crowds for loved ones. Each time two were reunited, he felt a little better about what they’d done.

At one point he picked out an old man hobbling forward to greet his toad-like son, a master no longer, just plain Owyn. A gaggle of workers walked along behind him, unsure of where to go or what to do. Finn watched as they sat down on the ground. He picked out Tanner and the woman he’d sat next to in the Valve Hall three years earlier, but he didn’t recognize any of the others. Later, as his gaze swept across the crowds, Finn thought he glimpsed the clock-winder, the old Director, pushing his way through the throng. Finn’s heart thumped in his chest. But when he found the man in the crowd again it wasn’t him.

Finn made his way across the floor of the tower to peer through one of the ‘scopes that pointed out towards the mountains. Some were already heading that way, off into the purple distance. Perhaps Connor was among them. Finn searched for nearly an hour but saw no-one he recognized.

‘Finn.’

It was Nathaniel, standing over him in the pale darkness. Nathaniel seemed a little happier in the enclosed space of the line-of-sight tower. More like his old self. His knelt down on the ground. ‘Finn, I wanted to apologize. For everything. For not believing you. I thought you were mad. I mean, I knew you were. You had to be. Only you weren’t.’

‘It’s OK. You weren’t to know.’

‘All those stories you told me. They were true weren’t they?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And all those years,’ said Nathaniel, sounding as if he was trying to understand it. ‘Shireen kept it all secret too. All that time I thought I was so wise, so clever. But I didn’t know anything.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Finn.

‘I was born in there, you see,’ said Nathaniel. He clearly felt the need to explain. ‘Engn was all I knew. I was brought up to know there wasn’t an outside world. The machine was everything. But it was a lie all along.’

Finn took his gaze from the eyepiece and looked at Nathaniel, his features picked out by the beams of light from the ports. They were all victims weren’t they? Even the masters. Even Nathaniel. Even the Director himself, lonely and bitter. What was the point of it all?

‘The thing is,’ said Nathaniel, whispering now. ‘Now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know how to live. The world is so vast. I mean, those mountains in the distance. They must be enormous.’

‘They are.’

‘I’ve lived such a small life,’ said Nathaniel. ‘And now there’s all this. Out there. I have to make up for all that lost time. I thought I understood the world, sitting there in the Sanatorium, reading all the old papers. But I didn’t know anything.’

‘You tried to do the right thing,’ said Finn. ‘That’s more than most people.’

‘I’m glad you think so, Finn. But still, I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know how to start.’

‘I think it’s obvious what you have to do,’ said Finn.

‘It is?’

‘The valley. Our home. That’s where we’ll go now. Shireen, too. You have to come with us. With her.’

‘With Shireen?’

‘Don’t you see? There’s nothing to come between you now.’

‘You’d let me come with you? After everything?’

Finn smiled. ‘I imagine Shireen will insist on it.’

Nathaniel touched Finn on the forearm. ‘Thank you, Finn.’

‘For what?’

‘For everything. For letting me come. And for Engn. I would have spent the rest of my life in there. Never knowing. Never understanding.’

Finn sighed. ‘You were safe, though. And happy enough. Perhaps it would have been better to leave everything as it was. How many people haven’t got out? How many have been killed?’

Nathaniel was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘I can only speak for myself. The truth is this new world frightens me, but I’m glad you did what you did. I’ll always be grateful to you.’

‘Finn!’ It was Diane, calling to him from across the room. ‘I think I see someone.’

Finn scrambled over to peer through the ‘scope Diane had been using. ‘Where? I don’t see him.’

‘Not Connor. It looked like Tom.’

‘Yes, I see him. He’s walking with a group of others. He must have escaped the mines after all. They all must have done.’

‘Can you tell who the others are?’

‘No. They’re in the shadows. Wait. Yes. Ah. I see.’

‘What?’

‘It’s not Tom. It’s his twin brother. Rory. Remember I told you about him helping me on the walkway? I recognize some of the people with him, too. There’s Ciara and Aelth.’

‘I’ll go and get him,’ said Diane. ‘Tell him where we are.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Finn.

‘No. I’ll go. You need to tell Mrs. Megrim one of her sons at least is alive.’

After he’d sent the line-of-sight, Finn clambered down the ladder to meet Rory and the others. Rory looked thinner than he remembered but he grinned as he approached.

‘Finn!’

‘You survived,’ said Finn. ‘I thought they’d catch you for sure.’

‘They nearly did. But I had friends at the Drop Tower to cover for me. It’s more amazing you survived.’

‘Tom helped me.’

‘Tom?’

‘He was there. In the mines. He kept me alive. But I haven’t seen him since I escaped. I haven’t seen anyone from down there. I’m sorry. I would have got him out if I could.’

Rory put a hand on Finn’s shoulder. ‘I know you would.’

‘I’ve spoken to your mother,’ said Finn. ‘Sent her a message to say you’re alive. Come and talk to her yourself. She’s sitting in the Switch House back home.’

‘You’ve got the line-of-sight working?’

‘The lines into Engn are dead. But we can send messages out to anywhere else from here.’

Rory turned to Ciara and the others. ‘We should tell everyone. Let them know they can talk to their loved ones. Let’s put the word out.’

Ciara stepped forward. She came up to Finn and squeezed his arm. ‘I’m glad you’re alive. What you did. It was incredible.’

‘Where is Maeve?’ asked Finn. ‘Or Lud, or whatever her real name is. Didn’t she come with you?’

‘She and the others have stayed inside,’ said Ciara.

‘Why?’

‘She said it was to make sure the destruction is complete,’ said Aelth. ‘It seems strange, though. It was like she didn’t want to leave.’

‘What happened after I was taken?’ asked Finn. ‘Was anyone else punished for the fire?’

‘No,’ said Ciara. ‘That master vouched for us, said we weren’t involved.’

‘Connor?’

‘That’s him. He saved us.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Do you know what happened to him?’ asked Ciara.

Finn shook his head. ‘No. I wish I did.’

They spent all that day and the following working the line-of-sight. Having helped Mrs. Megrim herself, Shireen was able to operate the devices nearly as quickly as Finn. The others helped too, punching in messages or delivering responses to those gathering beneath the tower.

Soon, a great line of people snaked off around the plain as people queued up to tell their loved ones back home they were safe. No-one seemed to mind having to wait. People talked and laughed, or just lay on the grass with their eyes closed. One or two people had fashioned musical instruments, blowing through lengths of pipe or banging on old pots. They sang ragged songs for the waiting lines, each performance being met with a roar of delight. Others entertained the crowds by juggling or performing acts of acrobatics. When he wasn’t working on the ‘scopes, Finn loved to walk among them all, watching and listening.

Some of the people sending messages via the line-of-sight left disappointed, their loved ones no longer alive or not answering. But most of the communications were messages of purest delight. Finn loved to watch these people, too, their faces lighting up as they read words from home.

By the third day, the line of people beneath the tower had reduced to a trickle. Ciara and Aelth had left, hand-in-hand, leaving Rory behind. One or two people still picked their way from the ruins. Scattered groups of people remained here and there on the plain, as if they intended to stay by the ruins of Engn. Some of them had been there so long it was their home, now. Finn even noticed one or two people creeping back inside once the worst of the fires had died down. Searching for loved ones, or maybe just food and shelter. But by now most people had left, walking away from Engn, alone or in groups, fanning out in all directions across the grass plain.

Diane came over to kneel beside Finn as the sun started to dip behind the shattered machine.

‘I underestimated him, didn’t I? Connor, I mean,’ she said.

‘I think a lot of people did.’

‘Do you think he knew? That he wouldn’t be able to get out?’

Finn sighed. ‘I think so. He must have known it all along.’

They sat in silence for a time then, Finn watching the vast plume of smoke fanning upwards into the sky. ‘Do you think they’ll ever rebuild it?’ he asked.

‘Only if we let them,’ Diane replied. ‘But it won’t happen in our lifetimes. Nor our children’s.’

‘Our children?’

Diane didn’t reply.

‘What will you do now?’ Finn asked. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Back to the valley. See my family. After that I was thinking of coming north again. Up to see you. If you’re OK with that.’

Finn nodded and smiled.

They waited one more night before agreeing no-one else was coming out. Tom had died in the mines. Connor, last Director of Engn, had been killed somewhere in the Directory, perhaps trying to escape, perhaps still in the Panopticon. Finn wondered if the ex-masters and Ironclads knew what had happened, knew what Connor had done. It barely mattered now. Let them think what they wanted.